


The faces he wears

by bellacatbee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Disturbing Themes, F/M, M/M, Prostitution, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 20:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellacatbee/pseuds/bellacatbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer appears to Nick in many guises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The faces he wears

The first time he comes he wears Sarah’s skin and speaks in her voice. Nick has been having dreams about her since the night she died so when he rolls over in bed and his wife is lying there beside him he thinks nothing of it. He wraps his arms around her, holds her against him and kisses her hair.

“I want this to be real.” He whispers and opens his eyes. Sarah doesn’t fade. She stays there, in his arms, looking up at him but when he looks at her she unnerves him. She isn’t his wife, there is something off about her and Nick remembers that she’s dead so how could he be holding her now?

“It’s another dream, isn’t it?” He asked miserably but still she won’t fade away.

“I need you, Nick.” She says, her lips ghosting against his. “I need you.”

A wave of revolution washes over him and he struggles away from her, falling out of bed and running for the bathroom. He throws up all the scotch he drank before bedtime and when he risks a look back into the bedroom there are just the rumpled sheets there – no wife or ghost or whatever it was in his bed. He brushes his teeth to get the taste out of his mouth and goes downstairs to wait for the dawn.

**

He shouldn’t be back at work. People are saying it to his face now. His sergeant recommends Nick take some time off, compassionate leave but there’s nothing compassionate about locking him up in that house with his nightmares.   
When he sleeps at night he can still see the blood although everything’s long been cleaned. He should sell the house. Everyone says he should sell the house but that just makes Nick more determined to stay. If he let it go then he’d have to let them go. He isn’t ready to let them go.

**

Its midnight and Nick is wide awake. Sarah, the not-really-Sarah, is nuzzling his neck.

“Who are you?” He asks, reaching to stroke through her hair. It’s as soft as he remembers but it doesn’t smell the way hers used to, not like the floral shampoo she used.

“I’m an angel.” The creature in his bed says. Nick wants to believe it’s his wife, that she is in heaven because that’s where she belonged, not in that grave he buried her in and he wants so badly to believe that she could be there, happy and contented and that heaven would let her visit him but no one sees angels unless they’re dying. Maybe he’s drinking himself to death. He’s been trying for long enough.

“Am I dead?” He asks and the angel laughs.

“No, you’re not dead. You’re special, Nick.” She strokes his face and he catches her hand, holding it there for a moment, wanting to memorise everything about her. He never took the time to capture all the little things about her. He thought he’d have time. He took her for granted. He wants so badly to look into her eyes but they won’t be his Sarah’s he knows. He takes a look anyway, just to see if maybe what’s there is serenity, the understanding and bliss people are supposed to get after death but he just sees another pair of eyes looking back at him. Whoever is in his wife’s body, the angel there, it’s not Sarah.

“Who are you?” He asks and the angel sighs and wriggles a little getting comfortable against him, whole body warm and Nick remembers that Sarah’s feet were always cold.

“I’m an angel, I told you but they call me Lucifer.”

Nick bolts again, straight downstairs this time and he doesn’t bother with throwing up. He needs to drink until he forgets everything that just happened. The devil is kind enough to stay in the upstairs bedroom and not try to follow him around the house.

**

The third time Lucifer appears, again as Sarah, Nick has sex with him. In his defence he’s drunk again and he doesn’t remember most of it. He remembers heat, remembers frantic desperation but that was all on his part. Lucifer, wearing Sarah, had lain there and petted his hair and called him special again as Nick had driven himself home and sobbed out how much he missed this closeness. He should miss other things about his wife, he did miss other things about her but he missed rolling over and pulling her too him, sinking inside her and rocking them together. Even after the baby came they’d still found time for it.

He stands under the shower, scrubbing himself till his skin starts to bleed and Lucifer watches him from the doorway, still naked from what they’d done. All over Sarah’s body there are the signs of where Nick had put his hands. There are bites on her neck. “Don’t do this.” Nick gasps, “Stop…not her. I can’t…not her.” His mouth is filled with water, he feels like he’s drowning and when he finally blinks the droplets from his eyes Lucifer and with him Sarah are gone. It’s a small miracle but Nick wasn’t expecting Satan to listen. He’s begged God for a lot of things and God has never answered him.

**

He takes a nightshift against recommendation. For some reason Nick thinks that Lucifer could only appear at night or maybe he just hopes against hope that that’s true. It’s a childish thought, that the bad people only exist in the dark and Nick should know that’s not true but it sustains him.

He drives around looking for crime and at the end picks up this kid for soliciting. He’s got big green eyes and smells like sugar and Nick knows there’s got to be some terrible story behind why he’s on the streets doing this, selling his body to make ends meet. He can’t see needle marks on the flesh the boy shows but maybe he injects himself somewhere it doesn’t show or he snorts what he’s hooked to. It doesn’t matter. Nick gets him back to the station and social services and the juvenile system take over.

He clocks off, goes home, doesn’t sleep.

When he comes back in for his next shift he finds out the kid hanged himself in his cell rather than face whatever he thought the future held for him. Nick is sent home. He thought he was doing something good. He’d hoped he was doing something good. No one should be out there on the streets doing that but all his good intentions led to nothing. The road to hell, he thinks ironically and sure enough when he gets back Lucifer is there in his room, wearing the boy this time and Nick sighs as he comes in and undresses.

“Is this better?” Lucifer asks him, standing up and he twirls to show off his new form. There’s no marks on his neck from where the belt would have tightened on him just like when Lucifer wears her there are no marks on Sarah to show the knife wounds. Nick wants to believe the boy is happy now, that he’s safe now.

“It’s better.” He mutters, down to just his underwear and he turns, catching Lucifer and pulling him closer. He’s smaller now, more fragile and Nick wants to laugh at the thought that the devil could ever be fragile. “Can you tell me the truth? Are they happy?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Nick.” Lucifer answers softly. “Sarah was a good person. Her soul is contented. Your son is contented. This boy…he suffered. His suffering is at peace now but you’re the one left behind. You’re the one who’s hurting.” He’s always surprisingly gently when he touches Nick but knowing that apparently things are better when you’re dead doesn’t make Nick grieve any less, doesn’t make him any less angry.

“Why?” He asked.

“Because God is cruel.” Lucifer answers. “He abandoned us both. I’m hurting just as you are, Nick. All I ever did was love. Just like you, all you ever did was love and want better for people. God punished us for our love. I want to make it right.”  
“Can you bring them back?” Nick asks, stroking over those thin shoulders. Maybe not Sarah and not his son, they’re dead and buried and people went to their funerals but this boy isn’t even twenty-four hours cold. People wake up sometimes after death, don’t they? They astounded the medical profession and Lucifer is an angel. “Can you bring him back?”

“No, Nick. I’m so sorry.” Lucifer or the face he’s wearing looks honestly upset and Nick just holds him. He strokes his hair and then he kisses him. He doesn’t know what Lucifer’s true form is, isn’t sure he can take one but he feels more secure with this form then he did when Lucifer wore Sarah. Maybe his grief is too much because he’s starting to think he might love Lucifer which is stupid. When he was wearing Sarah Nick didn’t know if it was the things Lucifer said he liked or the fact that those words came in his wife’s voice but now he knows.

“I think God hates me.” He says and Lucifer sucks in a deep breath, biting his lip and then shakes his head.

“No, I think it’s worse. I think he just doesn’t care.” Lucifer would know after all and Nick can see how that could be true. A God who’d stopped caring, who just let bad things happen because he was bored now with his creation and who was painted as loving when really he was selfish. That was what God was. And Lucifer was the kind one.

Lucifer is compliant again, spreading his legs so Nick can slid inside him and he leans his forehead against his – no, against the boy’s – and breaths him in in great shuddering breaths. “I don’t want to be punished again for loving too much.” He says, opening his eyes so he could watch Lucifer’s expression and Lucifer smiles at him.

“I won’t let you be hurt, Nick. I told you that you’re special. I want to help you. I want to get you justice.” He says and bucks his hips up just a little to remind Nick to move. It’s the first time Lucifer’s been anything but still and Nick can make himself believe that Lucifer wants this as much as he does.

“What do I need to do?” He asks.

“Just say yes.”


End file.
